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Night Watch is a regularly-occurring feature about bars and clubs by nightlife columnist Tara Nieuwesteeg.

When we walked in to the Whiskey Tango All American Bar and Grill (1903 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood Call 954-925-2555 or visit whiskeytangofl.com), we were assaulted by the sounds of an atrocious cover band playing "Summer of '69" and grabbed a high table since all the booths were packed full of dudes in Ed Hardy shirts.

The place reeked of new-ness and carefully arranged dcor--it had brick walls, lush, black-leather booths, immaculate tables, TVs, pool tables and dart boards, and sarcastic little signs ("This is a no bitching zone" and "Water on road during rain"). Two bars: One was modest-sized with TVs hanging overhead; the other was situated directly in front of the fuchsia-soaked stage.

Night Watch is a regularly-occurring feature about bars and clubs, written by nightlife columnist Tara Nieuwesteeg.

This week, I bar-hopped in Hollywood and stumbled into the PRL Euro Caf (1904 A Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood. Call 954-980-8945 or visit prlcafe.com).  PRL is a narrow venue with a few chairs at the front and a long bar extending along the right wall. I had to tit-punch and bow just to get through the sardine-packed bohemian crowd clustered around the bar and leaning against the walls.

Speaking of which, the brightly colored walls--tangerine and red--were smattered with eclectic artwork. One wall featured brightly-colored photos of naked Barbie dolls arranged in highly artistic (read: sexually explicit) positions. The other was composed of spray-paint style portraits of sexy rock icons, including Jimi Hendrix.

Jay, the Polish owner, was tall, ultra-cool, and spoke with a thick accent. He explained to me that PRL is the "sexy Communist name for Poland," and that the bar boasts a shitload of tasty beers from all over the world (Scotland to Spain, Brazil to Bulgaria).

Night Watch is a regularly occurring bar review with nightlife columnist Tara Nieuwesteeg.

Liquor is a cruel, messy mistress, and she doesn't love me. The last time I saw her, she left me with a hangover that lasted for three days. So, as I do every time she leaves me aching, I swore her off. It won't last, of course -- but it will give me ample time to make her jealous by experimenting with her smart, sexy, multilayered cousin, Miss Beer.

Early in life, my parents impressed upon me the beauty of beer. Beer is the answer to hot summer days; beer is the answer to a long day at work; good times come straight from the brewery. South Florida might be overrun with more people who enjoy consorting with Miss Liquor than those who love soaking up the thick, foamy, imported flavor of Miss Beer, but I was determined to find the beer-loving hot spots scattered throughout the region. They're out there, and, as I discovered, they're worth looking for.

My first stop was Ye Olde Falcon Pub (2867 S. University Drive, Davie; 954-424-0300, or click here).

Photo by Aki Pekka Stilinoski

Annie

Mark this as a must: Annie, who is best known for her tracks "Chewing Gum" and "I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me," will be making a quick stop at LIV in Miami Beach November 25 for a DJ set alongside Ross One and Contra. We'd really like for this to have been a live performance, but let's hope she graces South Florida with her presence some time in 2010 (looking at you Ultra organizers).

The Norwegian singer has just released her wonderfully superb electropop sophomore effort Don't Stop. It picks up where 2004's Anniemal left off, except not as retro-sounding. The album was delayed several times due to label disputes and what not, and despite having released two wonderful singles for the album -- the aforemention "Girlfriend" and the italo-disco track "Anthonio" -- neither was include in the final tracklisting.

But don't fret, the album is still packed with wonderful tracks. Some of our favorites include "Don't Stop," "I Don't Like Your Band," and the lead single "Songs Remind Me of You."

Check out the video for "Songs Remind Me of You" after the jump.

via groovemaker.com

Can you hear that faint thump? It's the heads of turntable purists smacking their heads against their desks. Still, like it or not, what constitutes "DJing" has forever changed with technology -- it's only a matter of time before somebody figures out how to use the DJ Hero controller in the club. Still, people have been using iPods to DJ since the devices came out, so why not the iPhone and iPod Touch?

Three local DJs -- Chris Domingo, Speechless, and Scratch-D from Dynamix II -- will do just that at Voodoo Lounge tomorrow for the iPDJ Mobile Groove DJ battle. The event is sponsored by IK Multimedia, the club, and Sonoma Wire Works, and is meant to showcase IK's new apps, Groovemaker and FourTrack. Each DJ will face off using the software, before playing their own full sets for the rest of the evening.

Okay, so Groovemaker's tagline might make some purists cringe -- "Everyone's an iPhone DJ with GrooveMaker!" The app comes themed to various genres -- house, hip-hop, techno, drum'n'bass, electro, and "club," whatever that means exactly. Each is loaded with loops and beats you can rearrange, speed up and slow down to create tracks in real time. There are up to eight tracks, and you can change elements as the music plays without a break.

Skot Olsen

A few months ago, New Times Broward-Palm Beach announced that we would be giving away $4,000 to local artists through our first-ever MasterMind Awards, sponsored by the Amplitude Academy of Musical Arts, a new music school in Boca.

This past Saturday, winners were announced at the Artopia event at Crobar@Exit 66. We received about 165 entries for the contest. The quality and variety of work was amazing.  None of it could be discounted. Difficult as it was to do, the pool was narrowed to 35 entries that our panel of judges looked at closely.  The judges scored those entries.  The Top 13 were announced in last week's print edition, and the Top 4 were given $1,000 checks at Artopia.

The judges were:

-- Janet Gold, visual artist / professor, Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale
-- Michael McKeever, playwright / actor / visual artist
-- Meredith Lasher, producer, Sixth Star Entertainment & Marketing / founder, Women's Theatre Project
-- Michelle Weinberg, creative director, Girls' Club Foundation
-- Brandon K. Thorp, New Times theatre critic
-- Michael Mills, New Times art critic
-- Amanda Magnetta, founder, Bear & Bird Gallery
-- Lori J. Durante, founder, Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History
-- Tate Ottati, owner, Tate's Comics

And the four winners are:

Kara Walker-Tome, who is usually so busy celebrating other artists that her own incredible skills can go relatively unnoticed. For eight years running, she's commandeered the chic Hotel Biba for a night, making way for artists to set up elaborate installations in each room. More recently, the independent curator has unleashed her guerrilla-style tactics on a self-storage facility. artsitepictures.shutterfly.com

Skot Olsen, who makes elaborate paintings that convey both his love for and awe of sea. He depicts freaky creatures in wild celebrations and rituals; terrible sea monsters and naked ladies; and sea squids who gobble up sailing ships whole. www.skotolsen.com

Victoria Skinner, who blurs boundaries with her cyanotype collages and chimera sculptures. Her work is a mix between human and animal, organic and mechanical, science and art, imagination and knowledge. Her work often achieves what she describes as "a balance between apprehension and amusement, the disturbing and the beautiful." gallery.me.com/vskinner.whnatysh
 
Francene Levinson, a former art teacher who discovered the obscure art of Chinese unit paper folding, "Zhe Zhi." She works now full-time on intricate paper sculptures. Each piece might use 3,500 sheets of recycled paper, and each takes months to create. www.francenelevinson.com

Congratulations to all winners, and we hope everyone else re-enters next year!

Audion

A heads up to Miami's downtown cognoscenti: Michigan's esteemed Ghostly International label will be celebrating 10 years of forward-thinking music and subculture at White Room on Saturday, December 5. Founded in 1999 by DJ Sam Valenti, Ghostly has become one of the most highly-acclaimed international platforms for cutting-edge and genre-defying contemporary music and multimedia, along with its more dancefloor-centric sister imprint Spectral Sound.

Ghostly's eclectic musical contingent will be represented on December 5 by the experimental Detroit techno/avant-pop forays of Audion, a.k.a. Matthew Dear, electro-tech producers Michna and Bodycode, and synthpoppers Solvent, along with Get Physical's M.A.N.D.Y. and Miami's own DJ Conway. This much anticipated musical extravaganza also marks the return of Miami's beloved SAFE, who brought us some of the finest underground electronic dance music bookings of the last couple years, and will be teaming up with Miami's legendary festival audio designer Terry McNeil to guarantee this will be one night of mind-blowing sounds. 

Click here to get your $15 pre-sale tickets.

Ghostly International 10 Year Anniversary Party. Saturday, December 5. 10 p.m.-5 a.m. White Room. 1306 N. Miami Ave., Miami.

Getting old sucks. I mean seriously. Remember what it was like being able to stay up all night drinking, then rolling into work the next day with nothing more than a cup of Starbucks and mixed visions of the previous one's debauchery and those of the one to come dancing behind your glazed eyes, before the onset of debilitating hangovers? But getting old doesn't always have to suck. There's midlife crises and senior citizens discounts to look forward to. Plus blaming convenient slips of the mind on the early onset of senility!

Also embracing growing old with grace, Tobacco Road. It's hard to believe, but Miami's oldest bar is getting even older, celebrating its 97th anniversary this week! And they're doing it up in style. No, not with pastelitos and a game of bobbing for dentures. But rather a two day bash, starting this Friday and rolling on through Saturday, featuring their famed 97 cents for 97 minutes happy hour drink special, twice on Friday and a third time Saturday. Plus there'll be music. LOTS of music. Among the performers, Suenalo, Electric Piquete, Bachaco, Iko Iko, Elastic Bond and Afrobeta. Now that's a lot of local goodness.

Tobacco Road (626 S Miami Avenue) celebrates its 97th anniversary on Friday, November 20, from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. and Saturday November 21, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Proof that music journalists are sometimes good for something, Thomas Koch, a.k.a. DJ T, made his true mark in the industry by founding Groove magazine some 20 years ago. With Koch at the helm as editor and publisher, it quickly became the bible in his native Germany for everything related to electronic music culture. But Koch was probably more happy behind the decks than behind a keyboard, having first fallen in love with hip-hop and early electro in the '80s. By the early '90s, he was spinning acid house and techno in the important taste-making underground venues of his native Berlin, and in 1999 with friends opened his own venue, Monza.